To show and explain to her all the objects of interest they passed was to him an intense pleasure.
They returned by way of Cannon Street, where he pointed out the great warehouses whence emanated those objects so dear to the feminine heart—hats and dresses; past the Post Office, with its lines of red mail-carts ready to start for the various termini; along Newgate Street with its grim prison, across the Holborn Viaduct, and thence along Oxford and Regent Street to the hotel.
“How busy and self-absorbed every one seems!” she again remarked. “How gigantic this city seems! Its streets bewilder me.”
“Ah, piccina mia,” he answered, “you’ve only seen a very tiny portion of London. There are more people in a single parish here than in the whole of Florence.”
“And they all talk English, while I don’t understand a word!” she said, pouting prettily. “I do so wish I could speak English.”
“You will learn very soon,” he answered her. “In a couple of months or so you’ll be able to go out alone and make yourself understood.”
“Ah no!” she declared with a slight sigh. “Your English is so difficult—oh, so very difficult!—that I shall never, never be able to speak it.”
“Wait and see,” he urged. “When we are married, I shall speak English to you always, and then you’ll be compelled to learn,” he laughed.
“But, Nino,” she said, her eyes still fixed upon the crowd of persons passing and repassing, “why are all these people in such a dreadful hurry? Surely there’s no reason for it?”
“It is business, dearest,” he answered. “Here, in London, men are bent on money-making. Nine-tenths of these men you see are struggling fiercely to live, notwithstanding the creases in their trousers, and the glossiness of their silk hats; the other tenth are still discontented, although good fortune has placed them beyond the necessity of earning their living. In London, no man is contented with his lot, even if he’s a millionaire; whereas in your country, if a man has a paltry ten thousand lire a year, he considers himself very lucky, takes life easily, and enjoys himself.”